India has crossed the landmark of vaccinating 100 crore individuals, becoming the second country after China to reach the milestone. But the basic difference between the two nations is accessibility to related data.
China claims to have vaccinated over 2.23 billion individuals. It even claimed last month of fully vaccinating over 100 crore people but there is no open-source data accessible to validate it. China even asserts that it has produced more than half of the world’s Covid vaccines so far.
Also Read: India’s Billion Breakthrough: Six People Who Steered the World’s Largest Vaccination Drive
On January 3 this year, India gave emergency-use approval to Covishield and Covaxin. Covishield is a two-shot Covid vaccine developed by AstraZeneca-Oxford University. Pune-based Serum Institute of India is its major producer. On the other hand, Covaxin, also a two-shot vaccine, is completely an indigenous achievement. It is developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.
Covishield is a viral vector vaccine using an adenovirus or common cold virus found in chimpanzees. The vaccine has an efficacy rate of 70% but, when both doses are given 8 to 12 weeks apart, it can go up to 91%. Covaxin also uses an inactive viral strain (killed coronaviruses) and has a 77.8% efficacy rate.
The country started its vaccination drive on January 16, targeting healthcare workers. Other frontline workers were added as intended beneficiaries in February.
On April 12, amid concerns of rapidly scaling up Covid cases and fatalities, India approved the third vaccine made by Russia: Sputnik V. Sputnik V also uses a weakened form of adenovirus and is a two-shot vaccine like the other two being used in the country. It shows an efficacy rate of around 91% and, as per a Russian claim made in September, it went up to 97.2% during the Belarus vaccination campaign.
The initial plan was to import a limited quantity of the vaccine followed by its mass production by Indian pharma companies. But so far nothing scalable has been achieved with just around 10.5 lakh Sputnik V doses given in the country. The reasons behind it may be the surge in Covid cases in Russia that has hit the global supply as well as Sputnik V being sold only in the private market in India. The Russian vaccine is finding very few takers amid free vaccine supply by the Government of India of the other two vaccines. That might also reflect on the domestic production capacity.
On May 1, India opened its vaccination drive for all adults after the disastrous second Covid wave made it the worst-affected country after the United States. It was also the period when the country saw an acute shortage of vaccines. It was coupled with a significant increase in the number of fear-driven beneficiaries after the Covid wave hit the country hard with April-May counting for half of all the Covid deaths in India.
Also Read: Coronavirus LIVE Updates: India Achieves Historic Milestone of 1 Billion Vaccines, Health Minister Congratulates Country
The Government of India put in efforts to ramp up the vaccination process from June after May saw, in fact, a lower inoculation number than April, working to increase vaccine availability and stockpile.
On June 12, the country crossed the mark of administering 25 crore doses – in 148 days from January 16 when the vaccination drive had begun.
The country achieved the mark of fully vaccinating 10 crore individuals on July 30. A person needs to be fully vaccinated in order to get better protection from a coronavirus infection and the vaccination drive took 196 days to arrive at it.
On August 6, India crossed the second 25 crore battle, administering another 25 crore vaccine doses, this time just in 56 days.
World’s first DNA-based Covid vaccine by the Indian pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila was approved on August 20. It is a three-shot vaccine and the population base above 12 years of age can be inoculated with it. It is expected to hit the markets soon.
On August 26, the country reached the mark of giving at least one jab to half of its 94-crore adult population and, on the very next day, it crossed the ‘1 crore doses a day vaccination’ mark for the first time, though it was later than expected. In May, the Covid-19 working group under the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) had expected that by August, 25 crore Covid vaccine doses will be available. It was also expected to reach a daily vaccination mark of 1 crore doses by then.
September 13 saw the country crossing the 75 crore total vaccination mark and this time, the 25-crore vaccination figure came in just 39 days, showing India’s good progress on the pace of inoculation.
Also Read: Covishield Emerges as Champion with India Delivering 1 Billion Jabs in a Bid to Knock Out Covid
On September 18, India achieved the mark of fully vaccinating 20 crore adult individuals. This ’10 crore more full vaccination’ achievement came in just 51 days. It was further sped up. According to data available, until October 19 the country had fully vaccinated another 9 crore people and is expected to complete the next 10 crore in just around 35 days.
Also, to connect remote areas of the country, the health ministry started drone delivery of Covid vaccines on October 4, a first in Southeast Asia. The vaccines, through drones, were delivered to a government health centre on a Manipur island in the Northeast and, currently, remote areas of Manipur and Nagaland and the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands are being covered under this ‘supply through drones’ initiative.
Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.
Comments
0 comment